Five members of the Cornell faculty have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). They are among the 283 researchers chosen to receive the prestigious award this year.
The five are Donald H. Beermann, professor of animal science; Joseph A. Burns, professor of astronomy and the Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering; Barbara L. Finlay, professor of psychology; Richard G. Harrison, professor of ecology and systematics; and Mark E. Sorrells, professor of plant breeding.
The five were named, in a tradition going back 124 years, for their efforts toward advancing science or fostering applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. They will be presented with an official certificate and a rosette pin at the Fellows Forum during the 1999 AAAS annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Jan. 23.
Founded in 1848, the AAAS represents the world's largest federation of scientists and has more than 144,000 individual members.
Beermann's research concerns the regulation of growth and metabolism of skeletal muscle in food-producing animals and factors that influence the nutritional composition, physical properties and sensory characteristics of muscle as a food. He received his doctorate jointly in muscle biology and human physiology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1976. He joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor in 1978 and has held a joint appointment as professor in the animal science and food science departments since 1993.
Burns' current research concerns planetary rings, the small bodies of the solar system (dust, satellites, comets and asteroids), orbital evolution and tides, in addition to the rotational dynamics and strength of satellites, planets and asteroids. He is a member of the imaging team for NASA's Cassini and Rosetta missions and an associate of the Galileo imaging team. From 1989-95 he sat on the National Research Council's Space Studies Board, the final three years chairing its Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration.
Finlay's research concerns the structure and function of the vertebrate nervous system, particularly the visual system and the cerebral cortex. Her findings strengthen the case for the cerebral cortex as a general-purpose learning device, not a collection of specially adapted mechanisms. She received her doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976 and joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor in the psychology department the same year. She was named a full professor in the department in 1988 and has been chair since 1996.
Harrison's current research efforts focus on answering fundamental questions about the genetics of natural populations and on applications of modern molecular genetic techniques to systematic and evolutionary biology. He is interested in how DNA sequences change over time. He obtained his doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell in 1977. He joined the faculty as an associate professor in the Section of Ecology and Systematics in 1986 and was named full professor in 1991. He has been chair of the section since 1996.
Sorrells' research projects are designed to address specific problems related to cultivar development or production using comparative genomics. His current projects include introgression of wild relatives of oat and wheat, inheritance and physiology of pre-harvest sprouting resistance, milling and baking quality, recurrent selection and development of molecular markers. He also is director of the Cornell Small Grains Project, a program to develop, evaluate and introduce new cultivars and germplasm of small grains.
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